Norcross High School is hosting its inaugural high school quiz bowl tournament. This will be open to all high school level teams though there will be only one division meant for varsity level teams, not to discourage younger players. It will be held on March 6th.

This will be a mirror of the Prison Bowl meaning questions will be written by students of Hunter High School in NY and the University of Missouri. Information about question distribution and the tournament format may be found here. Tournament format and/or rules may change relative to the different nature of the two events. This past years questions may be found here.

In reading the descriptions of the questions being written for this tournament, you may realize there are several, several rounds that each team will be hearing as the day goes on. It should be a fun day.

Registering

Fees for this tournament will be $65 per team with a $5 discount for each additional team ($65, $125, $185). Each team is expected to provide one buzzer system, though if this is a problem for any team then I would like to be alerted in registering. If you are coming from out of state then you may be eligible for additional discounts which will be decided upon on a case-by-case basis.

To contact me, please e-mail me at: xakahnx gmail com
Please let me know of any questions or of plans you have to attend.

I don't know how much flexibility you have in terms of when you can hold this mirror, but does it absolutely have to be in February? There are already so many Georgia tournaments squeezed in between the end of January and the end of February (pretty much one every weekend) but absolutely nothing for the rest of the year after February 27 besides the Varsity State tournament on March 18-19. I think that you might get more teams if you were able to move the tournament to either March 5 or March 12, and it would make a great warmup event leading up to Varsity State. I don't know if you have the option of moving the tournament but, if you do, I would seriously consider it.

Central Gwinnett will definitely be there if this tournament is moved away from February 13 (day of Brookwood JV.)

I hadn't realized that conflict. I tried to check all of the resources I could in order to avoid this. I'm surprised that your tournament is not listed on the GATA website, Mr. Barry.

It is very possible that we will be able to change the date without causing too much trouble, as far as I know. March 13th is an SAT day. The logical date seems to be March 6th, before which is JV State which may leave a break for varsity players. As well, it would also leave a break the weekend after. I'm unfamiliar with the MS/JV tournament hosted on the same day at Oak Mtn. Academy. That leads me to believe it isn't a serious conflict.

I can't say that may dates match yours, though, as March 18-19 seems to be a Thursday and Friday. Is the Varsity state tournament March 26-27? I'm actually very confused on dates at this point as the Cedar Shoals tournament, which last year was purposefully the weekend before Varsity state, is listed on GATA on March 20th while the coach himself has posted it as being February 20th. I'm not sure if it's in my best interest to avoid getting my information there for the time being.

Assuming there are no conflicts the weekend before Varsity state and it is not March 13th I would prefer it then as a warm-up. Otherwise, moving to March 6th as I picked out earlier seems to be the best.

Hopefully someone will be able to help me sort out this mess. Thanks for your concerns.

Yeah, I was trying to go on memory and did not consult an actual calendar, so all my dates were off by one day. I have now checked my calendar and have Varsity State listed for March 19-20 and Cedar Shoals listed as February 20. Can someone else from Georgia confirm those dates?

March 6 would seem like a really good day to hold a tournament -- closer to the Varsity State tournament, not an SAT date, no other metro area tournaments to compete with.

Cedar Shoals' Jag Bowl is the weekend before State Varsity. State is March 26-27, so ours is March 20. The GATA page still hasnt reflected my date change so hence some confusion. To state again, we're on March 20, so the 6th and 13th are open options, FWIW. We changed it simply because, as Cathy has said, there's way too much in February and not enough in March before state.

Add on: From what I see on the temp GATA website (gataquizbowl.com, not the usual .org) Jag Bowl is now listed on its March 20 date and there's no real competition on the 13th or the 6th (ignore the Oak Mtn event, that's Chip Beall and has been move to Alabama as "Deep South Challenge" and the 13th is grades 6 and under) so I hope you're able to have it then.

Alright, thank you very much. Plan to see Norcross's Mirror of the Prison Bowl moved to March 6th, 2009, assuming we are able to clear that date with Hunter High School and the Norcross administration.

I have sent e-mails to as many teams in the area as possible, though I can't say what happens to them once they go out. It's very possible that they are getting picked up as spam on school addresses.

[email protected] is on my address list. If you haven't been getting my e-mails on that address then there isn't all that much hope for the majority of coaches. If you have any other advice to circumvent a problem like that it would be appreciated, though.

I do understand that there are a select number of teams that have to work out the schedule between the Clemson tournament and our own. And, as always, it's hard to gauge how many players are available on any given weekend. I'm pretty content right now with the response I've been getting. I'm confident that we will have enough teams interested to hold a good tournament, as we hope to.

The field has settled in to this as of 2/12. My speculation tells me that the field will likely end up between 20 and 24 teams. If necessary we may play a house freshmen team in order to get a round number like 21 or 24. With 3 brackets in the prelims this will guarantee teams 6-7 rounds.

That's 20-24 teams. Unless there is an unexpected number of last minute teams that contact me by the end of the week, I will cap the field at 24 teams. No one will be turned away at this point, though.

A * indicates that I've been assured that you will be there. If you're school does not have a *, please e-mail me as soon as possible at xakahnx gmail com to confirm. This is even more necessary for those teams that are still deciding between one and two teams.

In the sake of time, we will likely edit the distribution in the morning rounds to the following:

I feel like that works hugely better when the tournament wasn't written with 20/20 rounds in mind. Like, it's possible that you could omit fourth or third questions in a category that had been there to provide distributional balance that would then be missing.

Percentage-wise, the distribution for the middle-categories isn't affected. The main categories' distribution changes by an eightieth. The others' effects may be slightly more significant, though I still don't think the one pop culture question is going to decide each match.

It's necessary that we shorten the rounds for the sake of our teams and volunteers. If there is a more acceptable way to do this, maintaining reasonably timed rounds and the intended distribution, then I would appreciate hearing it.

I would really prefer that you not do this. Yesterday we were able to read 13 rounds of the set by 5:30, which is about 30 minutes per packet. If you were to shorten each round to 16/16, you'd only be shortening each round by about 6 minutes. We've made sure each question adheres to strict length limits, so randomly omitting 4/4 per packet will probably do more harm than good. If you really need shorter rounds, please email me and I will see if I can edit each question to be about a line shorter.

Andrew's a Freshman wrote:Percentage-wise, the distribution for the middle-categories isn't affected. The main categories' distribution changes by an eightieth. The others' effects may be slightly more significant, though I still don't think the one pop culture question is going to decide each match.

I think Andy means the subdistribution—nothing's stopping you from screwing over, say, a European history player, or a physicist, or even someone who likes plays. I'm not saying that the set was micromanaged that much in its writing (in the type of literature; certainly it was in the location/subdiscipline), but generally there's a sense of a good balance in a set that can be undone.

Andrew's a Freshman wrote:Percentage-wise, the distribution for the middle-categories isn't affected. The main categories' distribution changes by an eightieth. The others' effects may be slightly more significant, though I still don't think the one pop culture question is going to decide each match.

I think Andy means the subdistribution—nothing's stopping you from screwing over, say, a European history player, or a physicist, or even someone who likes plays. I'm not saying that the set was micromanaged that much in its writing (in the type of literature; certainly it was in the location/subdiscipline), but generally there's a sense of a good balance in a set that can be undone.

Exactly. It's possible that Lily et al. constructed this set making sure that there was 3/3 Hindu myth and you might accidentally take out 2/2 of it. (And even if you make sure that you don't, or even if you deconstruct the set into its constituent categories, take things out, and then repacketize, generally you should assume that there's a reason that editors included questions on a subject and did not omit them--and that you don't know all the reasons for that.) There's also the issue of calling yourself a Prison Bowl mirror and then not, in many respects, mirroring Prison Bowl; it's sort of false advertising for the PB set.

What you are doing for next Saturday is fine with me. I know this is you guys' first shot at hosting a tournament and planning ahead for time management problems is a good thing especially with inexperienced readers (if y'all are going ot have any of those!).

I do not think, knowing the schools/teams/coaches who are on your list, that most of them ever heard of Prison Bowl much less know what Prison Bowl rounds are like exactly. (Not a knock on Prison Bowl, but it just isn't what is discussed in quiz bowl among most GA teams.) They are not likely to feel misled by having shorter rounds of questions.

If there is anything I can do to help you guys out this week please let me know. [email protected]

Thanks for that explanation as I didn't see that at first. I've already talked with Lily, and we'll be working to make sure all of our readers are as prepared as possible so that the tournament runs on time and in full.

I can't take the idea off the table entirely at this point. Hopefully those who will actually be reading the questions will give me enough confidence later in the week.

I do realize that, even with the strength of the field, there are few Georgia teams that look at quizbowl on the national level. Hopefully we'll be able to accommodate all of the teams that attend, as well as those that do not. While I don't anticipate having any sub-par readers, it may not be a stretch to call a few of them inexperienced in relation to quizbowl. Thanks for the good wishes, Mr. Barry.

We will be prepared to hear the packets however you all decide best to use them. Of course, we would love to hear the whole set in its entirety, but we certainly understand that if you have inexperienced readers (not to mention inexperienced teams) time constraints could factor into whatever final decision you make. In regard to those time constraints, we would not be able to stay until 5:30pm to finish the set/tournament. We are planning to drive to Clemson on Saturday night so that we can arrive in time for the Lit singles, and also so we can be there for Sunday's tournament.

Like Mr. Barry, I also would like to extend my services if you need any help this week in preparation for the tournament on Saturday. (I could also read in a pinch if you need someone come tournament time.)

How many preliminary and playoff rounds are you planning to run? If time constraints are a major factor, why not just plan to use less rounds rather than to eliminate questions from within the rounds?

By the way, most coaches/teams in Georgia are used to playing only 5-6 preliminary rounds. If you are planning to use more than that (and I personally hope so), I would recommend that you inform coaches of that in advance.

I can ensure that the rounds will not run until 5:30. I can say with a certain degree of certainty that we will have 24 teams at the tournament. If this dream of mine comes true, then we will split the field into 3 brackets for the preliminary rounds for every team to play 7 round-robin matches. This will be followed by, (I'll make myself say) if time permits, 4 rounds of of seeded single-elimination playoff matches between the top 16 teams. An option would be to cut off a round of playoffs to shorten the day, only letting 8 teams participate. I'll leave that as "to be determined", though I don't like the idea of only 8 teams making the cut.

Once everything is finalized, the first thing being the field, then I'll make everything clear to the teams coming. This will be Tuesday or Wednesday. I wouldn't want to break any promises by jumping the gun.

Andrew's a Freshman wrote:I can ensure that the rounds will not run until 5:30. I can say with a certain degree of certainty that we will have 24 teams at the tournament. If this dream of mine comes true, then we will split the field into 3 brackets for the preliminary rounds for every team to play 7 round-robin matches. This will be followed by, (I'll make myself say) if time permits, 4 rounds of of seeded single-elimination playoff matches between the top 16 teams. An option would be to cut off a round of playoffs to shorten the day, only letting 8 teams participate. I'll leave that as "to be determined", though I don't like the idea of only 8 teams making the cut.

Once everything is finalized, the first thing being the field, then I'll make everything clear to the teams coming. This will be Tuesday or Wednesday. I wouldn't want to break any promises by jumping the gun.

Er, would you consider reducing the number of preliminary rounds to 5 or 6 and have a playoff rebracketing and round-robin?

Douglas Graebner, Walt Whitman HS 10, Uchicago 14
"... imagination acts upon man as really as does gravitation, and may kill him as certainly as a dose of prussic acid."-Sir James Frazer,The Golden Bough

Andrew's a Freshman wrote:I can ensure that the rounds will not run until 5:30. I can say with a certain degree of certainty that we will have 24 teams at the tournament. If this dream of mine comes true, then we will split the field into 3 brackets for the preliminary rounds for every team to play 7 round-robin matches. This will be followed by, (I'll make myself say) if time permits, 4 rounds of of seeded single-elimination playoff matches between the top 16 teams. An option would be to cut off a round of playoffs to shorten the day, only letting 8 teams participate. I'll leave that as "to be determined", though I don't like the idea of only 8 teams making the cut.

Once everything is finalized, the first thing being the field, then I'll make everything clear to the teams coming. This will be Tuesday or Wednesday. I wouldn't want to break any promises by jumping the gun.

Er, would you consider reducing the number of preliminary rounds to 5 or 6 and have a playoff rebracketing and round-robin?

You could do four divisions of six teams; this would mean five round robin games. Then you could rebracket and have five more games, which would (in theory) guarantee every team at this tournament ten games, and mean that the tournament would run eleven or (if you used mACF rules for advantaged finals) twelve rounds overall.

However, if Southside's experience at Central Gwinnett's HFT mirror is representative of GA teams, multiple teams might leave prior to the completion of the rebracketed games. It's a shame that GA teams are only used to playing five or six rounds, when they could get ten for the same price.

Ben Cole, Southside '10, George Mason '14
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals/ the power of your intense fragility:

"I'll also note the humor in me defending high schoolers from Matt Bollinger." - Mike Cheyne

Since this is our first time hosting a tournament, we will be running single-elimination playoffs. It's easier on us and the teams attending will be happier with it. I'm not qualified to rebel against the traditional Georgia format at this point.

I would very much prefer that this tournament run rounds of 20/20. Like others have said, running rounds of 16/16 would mess with the subdistributions, which can have an effect on gameplay. In addition, I don't particularly like playing sets that are modified from what they were intended to be. I'm looking forward to playing the Prison Bowl set, so something less would be a bit disappointing. In addition, there are other ways to save time. Not sending teams back to a common area between every round, being willing to change out slow readers, and keeping lunch to a reasonable time are just three suggestions. Alpharetta ran its first high school tournament this year and we finished 10 rounds of 20/20 before 4:30, so I know that it's possible for relatively inexperienced teams to run efficient tournaments.

AlphaQuizBowler wrote:sending teams back to a common area between every round.

People do this? Why?

Douglas Graebner, Walt Whitman HS 10, Uchicago 14
"... imagination acts upon man as really as does gravitation, and may kill him as certainly as a dose of prussic acid."-Sir James Frazer,The Golden Bough

To answer your question as to why some teams might send people back to a central location after each match or every other match. Back in the mid-1990s, at the BISB (our varsity tournament) for three straight years, teams or individuals stole or broke things from our teachers' classrooms causing the Academic Team to have to spend a great deal of money to replace those things. One year we repaired a $850.00 chair a teacher bought to use. We decided to send players back to the Commons between rounds because we were directed (by our principal in those days) to do something to reduce the amount of time our guests spent in the classrooms between matches with minimal "chaperoning" by our students who act as timers and scorers. We have not had one item stolen or damaged since that decision was made.

I actually caught a coach one time carrying three books out of my classroom DURING matches. He was extremely embarrassed to say the least.

I guess having 100-168 teams brings some problems that having 24-40 teams doesn't. Our JV tournaments have never had that problem and they have been between 40-80 teams.

I amnot advocating anyone do what we do. Rather, just explaining why we do it with our big tournament.

It's a little last minute, but you may be lucky enough to jump into the field. I have already extended the option to Mr. Barry of Brookwood fielding a second team so I will not deny him of that. If, for whatever reason, he does not then you will be in line just behind him and in just in front of Ola's third team on the waiting list.

If you can put me in contact with your coach or someone of leadership then I will send you the details. Emailing may would be equally effective.

Alpharetta beat Chattahoochee A in the final round to win the first ever tournament at Norcross High School. Semi-finalists were Centennial, losing to Alpharetta, and Southside, losing to Chattahoochee A.

More detailed scores will be posted at a later date.

I believe the day went well for most teams. Two cancellations resulted in one field playing 6 matches and each of the others playing 5. Hopefully the late lunch was the downside of the day, though if there were other problems I wouldn't mind hearing them.

Thanks to everyone for coming - I know it was a good experience for us.

1. Congrats to Alpharetta and Chattahoochee for their excellent performances today. Alpharetta took my team, Brookwood, out in the quarterfinals by 100 points.

2. Norcross people did a great job with the tournament. Congrats Andrew, Mr Stoll, et al. I never cease to be amazed how many high schools in this state can host tournaments successfully. I hope you guys repeat this fete next year.

3. Lily and the Hunter College folks: your questions were very well-written and played very well here in Georgia. Thanks for that.

I echo everything that Mr. Barry said about the tournament yesterday at Norcross. It was obvious that they had put a lot of work into planning every element of their tournament and it paid off. You would never have known that it was their first time hosting a tournament. Everything was well-organized, ran smoothly and the readers were uniformly excellent!

Congrats to Alpharetta and Chattahoochee for making it to the finals in such a deep field of teams. My team didn't play either Alpharetta or Chattahoochee yesterday but I was impressed by the extremely high level of play exhibited by Brookwood, Centennial and Southside (a two-man team here.)